Your Child’s Personality and Reading
Hello from Karen! I enjoy children and their unique personalities. so let’s talk about how temperament relates to reading styles and habits.
Our personality influences how we approach life and tasks. Understanding your child’s personality may help you know how to best encourage reading and the love of books. Let’s look at the four personality temperaments and how that can relate to reading. You can often relate these types to favorite characters, such as Winnie the Pooh and friends.
- Popular Sanguine
You probably hear this child before seeing him or her. He’s talkative, noisy, and bouncy. He likes attention and doesn’t like to sit still. This wiggle worm could avoid books if they don’t seem exciting enough. This child resembles Tigger in the world of Pooh. However, because this child is social oriented, they enjoy being read to and reading with someone. They may never outgrow this side of reading in a social setting and might like book clubs. They also like to re-enact stories or retell them with their own twist. Books with a host of characters are more interesting to a sanguine, especially if there’s lots of action.
- Powerful choleric
This child might often be considered bossy. He or she is a natural born leader who likes to attain goals. This child might remind you of rabbit in Pooh’s world. They like facts and information. Provide nonfiction books and some how-to books for this child. Use a reading chart so they can check off how many books they’ve read. For fiction, choose books that connect with facts they like (like fiction with a dog or at a camp for outdoor lovers). They like to make choices and will enjoy learning how to use the library system to find books they want to read.
- Perfect melancholy
This child is quiet, sensitive, and analytical. This child is more like Eeyore from Pooh’s world. Such a deep thinker likes books beyond his or her normal age group. They naturally enjoy sitting and reading and prefer to have a quiet place to read. This child might prefer nonfiction and art books or might enjoy fiction with a more complex plot and less characters. They also like books that include charts, maps, and factoids. They will want a bookcase and will continually organize the shelves.
- Peaceful phlegmatic
This child likes to relax and enjoys food. He or she also likes peace and tends to be likeable. He or she is everybody’s friend like Pooh himself. He or she also procrastinates and would read more if he didn’t tend to nod off while reading. This child is also happy to have someone else read aloud. He or she may have a collection of books but doesn’t always finish reading many of them. If they must read a book for school sit them in a less comfortable chair to keep them awake. They may need a reward for completing each book to motivate him or her to keep reading. This child has a great sense of humor and will enjoy books with humor.
If you want to know more about personalities check out my book Raising a Young Modern Day Princess.
Have fun encouraging reading!
